


To Sir, With Love

by richmahogany



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: At Lewis' retirement party, James gets very drunk and declares his love for Robbie. No, not like that - no shipping, but a lecture on Plato and Aristotle.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	To Sir, With Love

Lewis hadn’t expected to enjoy himself greatly at his retirement party. He realized that such occasions are more for others than the person on whom they ostensibly centred. A bit like a wedding was more for the benefit of the extended families and friends of the couple, who really only got to enjoy the honeymoon. Still, it had been a pleasant occasion, organised with marvellous efficiency by Superintendent Innocent. It was held at the restaurant at the top of the Ashmolean Museum. Drink was plentiful, and the food was excellent, particularly the cocktail sausages. Embarrassing speeches were kept at a minimum, and on the whole Lewis had to admit that it was quite nice to have lots people, including some top brass, come up to him with messages of appreciation. Under these circumstances, however, it wouldn’t have been right for him to drink too much, seeing that this was still in a way part of work.

Which is why towards the end of the party, Robbie was still relatively sober. He had hoped to exchange at least a few words with his sergeant, though. In fact, he had counted on Hathaway’s moral support throughout the evening, to take the strain out of maintaining an “official” demeanor. Of course, a proper talk with Hathaway would have to wait until they got some time alone, ideally over a few pints at the pub. Saying goodbye to James would be tricky, he knew. It was one thing to retire from the job, but to leave your sergeant behind was a different matter. The fact that it was James made it even harder. “If you go, I go”, James had told him, and Lewis knew that he had tried to resign from the force. He also knew that Innocent hadn’t accepted the resignation and had instead sent Hathaway on extended leave, which, she hoped, would bring him to his senses.

Lewis knew that he would have to have a good long talk with James, and this was not the occasion for having it, but whenever he got a glimpse of his sergeant during the evening he got slightly more worried. James had acted most uncharacteristically during the whole event. He normally put in the briefest appearance he could get away with at any party, but today he was still here even though it was getting late. What’s more, for most of the time he had been slumped into a corner, with a face as if he was about to cry, and getting steadily drunk. Most people had left by now, and the party was definitely coming to an end. Innocent, in her coat and ready to go, said quietly to him “can you take him home?”, nodding at Hathaway, who was by now staring glassy-eyed into space.

“Of course, Ma’am, don’t worry.”

He took his leave of Innocent and sat down next to Hathaway.

“Time to go home, sergeant,” he said.

Hathaway looked at him and gave him a dreamy smile.

“I’ll call us a taxi,” Robbie continued and took his mobile out. Hathaway watched him, seemingly fascinated, while he ordered a taxi to pick them up in ten minutes’ time. Robbie put his phone away again and was preparing to maneuver James up from the seat and towards the door, but just then James leaned against him and grasped his arm, which on the Hathaway Scale of Human Interaction was basically the equivalent of a hug. He looked at Lewis with puppy-dog eyes and declared loudly:

“I love you, sir.”

Robbie felt a small wave of panic. What did he mean? Had anybody heard him, and if so, what would they think? What was he supposed to think? How drunk was the lad? Did he really mean what he just said? And what was he supposed to say? “That’s nice”?

His panic must have shown on his face, because James giggled delightedly and added;

“No, not like that! Just...the other way.”

“What other way? Platonic, like?”

James snorted.

“You know, when people speak of platonic love, most of the time they don’t know what they are talking about. They certainly haven’t read any Plato.”

“Which you have, of course.”

“Of course! True, Plato differentiated between eros and philia, love with an erotic component and love without that, but he was really mostly interested in the erotic stuff. It’s a lot more complicated than people think. He talked a lot about sexual love between men, though.”

This was getting worse and worse. Perhaps a distraction was in order.

“That’s very interesting,” said Lewis, not meaning it.

“Now, can you get up? Come on…”

He pulled at James’ arm and managed to get him to a standing position. Now they had to make their way to the door. James was compliant but uncoordinated, so Robbie had a hard time getting him out of the room and into the lift without falling over. At least the exertion temporarily shut him up. Getting James down the steps to street level was a major undertaking, but they got there. Robbie propped James up against the wall, while they got their breath back. Unfortunately this prompted James to start talking again.

“Most of the Symposion is people giving speeches in praise of Eros, you know,” he said.

Was this a new subject or did he just continue where he had left off?

“If you want to know what I mean, you have to look at Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics.”

Lewis couldn’t help but admire how James got those long words out, considering the state he was in. He did this by speaking slowly and enunciating every syllable very carefully.

“Is that so?” he said, craning his neck to see if their taxi was approaching yet.

“Yes! He says that true friendship is when a friend wants the best for their friend because they are their friend. For the friend’s sake, you know. Not because they get something out of it.”

James might not trip over his long words, but he surely had got tangled up in his pronouns now, thought Robbie.

“And also he says that it is more important to love than to be loved. So there!”

As if that explained anything! Robbie sighed.

“But why do you keep saying love when you are talking about friendship?” he asked.

“Because it’s the same thing! It’s the same word! Philia, which you can translate as friendship, but really it means love. And...and because I want the best for you an’ to be happy ‘n‘ everything, just ‘cause you’re you, that’s why I love you.”

The dropped letters told Lewis that James wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, but thankfully the taxi arrived now. He somehow managed to fold James inside and sat next to him. James was mercifully silent while they were driving. In fact he had almost fallen asleep when they arrived at his flat, and Robbie had to wake him up again, pull him out of the taxi and push him towards his front door.

“Keys?” he asked.

“Mmmh...” Hathaway said and vaguely groped at his pockets. Lewis stuck his hand in himself and was relieved when he found the keys in the jacket pocket. He opened the door, and they went inside, with James leaning heavily on him.

Robbie got him as far as the couch in the living room. James was by now little more than a dead weight, and in setting him down Robbie bumped against the coffee table and upset the chessboard and a small pile of books. Oh well, that could wait. He left James slumped against the cushions with his eyes closed and went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. He didn’t really know where things were, but there was a clean-looking pint glass on the worktop, next to a half empty bottle of scotch and a face-down paperback (“The Psychology of Music” - clearly something to dip into while waiting for the microwave to ping or the pasta to cook).

He filled the glass of water and went back to the living room. James however had really fallen asleep this time. He didn’t even wake up when Robbie lifted his legs onto the couch and took off his shoes. He picked up the chessmen and put them on the table – James would have to restore his game himself. He then set about reconstituting the pile of books. The foundation, which was still in place, was a massive paperback containing three novels by John le Carré. Next was Freud’s “Dream Interpretation”, a volume of Tennyson’s poems, a Dickens novel, and something called “The Autistic Brain” (what the hell was he reading that for?). Top of the pile had been an insert from a CD, open at the centrefold photograph of a guitarist, a dapper-looking chap with a pencil mustache.

With order restored, Lewis sat down in the chair opposite the couch to contemplate his sleeping sergeant for a moment. He wished he could dismiss what James had said as drunken ramblings, but he knew in his inebriation, James had actually revealed something of his true feelings.

When had the lad become so devoted to him? Thinking back, Robbie realized that the signs had been there for a long time.

The night in Cooper’s basement, with Lewis lost in a mountain of random papers, searching for a clue which he had convinced himself had to be there. Hathaway had disagreed, but he hadn’t tried to stop Lewis by saying it was all nonsense. What he had said was “I’m not going to watch you do this to yourself”. It was because he didn’t want Lewis to go through this emotional torment. And then, when Lewis hadn’t budged, he had simply taken off his jacket, sat down and started to sift through the papers himself. For hours. He hadn’t talked about what they were doing, or anything else really, he had just been there, at Lewis’ side. And he hadn’t said “I told you so” when, of course, they hadn’t found anything.

Then there was the time when he had come into work in the morning and found his sergeant dishevelled and wide-eyed from too much coffee, having been there all night to sort through the evidence and assemble it in a giant jigsaw. And why had he done that?

“You thought something wasn’t right, sir”, he had explained with a shrug. His embarrassed demeanor had told Lewis why he had done it: not because James thought that it was his job, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so uncertain whether he had done the right thing. No, he had done it for Lewis.

He suddenly remembered another moment, when James had practically interposed himself between him and that medium woman, who blathered on about how “she didn’t suffer”. He was determined to spare Robbie the anguish of old wounds being opened. For him, the subject of Val was completely out of bounds, because he knew how much it hurt Robbie to talk about her.

And of course that horrible day in court, with Monkford in the dock, and his worst memories at the forefront of his mind. Again James had been at his side, and when he had thanked him for coming with him, he had just said “that’s alright”. He could still feel that gentle tap on his back, which, applying the Hathaway Scale again, was the equivalent of an arm round the shoulders.

And now? If James had linked his fate so inextricably with Robbie’s, no wonder he felt that it was all over for him.

And what was Hathaway to Lewis? Someone to beat him at squash (and then be too bashful to mention it). Someone to go for a drink with, definitely. Many drinks, even. Someone to have deep and meaningful conversations with, even if anything too personal was still taboo. But he enjoyed listening to James giving his views on any subject under the sun, and he enjoyed the silences too. After so many years they had achieved an easy companionship which Lewis valued highly. But James had talked about caring for a friend because of what he is, not for what you got out of the relationship. So, how did he care for Hathaway?

The relationship between an inspector and his sergeant was always a special one. Lewis knew this better than anyone else, having been yoked to Morse for a decade and a half. He had compared the relationship to a marriage, “except”, he had added, “I was already married”. He had heard Hathaway make the same comparison. And Laura’s quip about Hathaway being his better half had a kernel of truth in it, although he baulked at the “better”. Well, he wasn’t married now, and neither was his sergeant. So what did that mean for them?

Now that he tried to define the relationship, he found that he struggled to find the right words. Hathaway was young enough to be his son, but he didn’t feel like a father to him. All the same, he thought that James needed someone to look out for him, to guide him through the trials of this world, and to stop him from getting lost too far in his own head. To protect him, mostly from himself. And Robbie was that someone. He hadn’t chosen to be it, and it wasn’t easy either. He had complained often enough what an awkward sod Hathaway was. But still, he had taken on that role, because James was worth it. Wasn’t that what Hathaway had meant? He wanted James to be his friend, and he wanted to be a friend to James, because – well, just because he was James. That was probably what they called “circular reasoning” – Hathaway could have told him. Maybe, but he didn’t care. It was the best he could do. A line from a song floated into Robbie’s mind:

But most of all I love you ‘cause you’re you.

So they were back at love again. Not the word Lewis would have chosen to describe their relationship, but at least he thought he understood what James had meant. And who was he to argue with the ancient Greeks?

Lewis looked at his watch. He should probably go to his own home now, if he wanted to get at least some hours of sleep. Hathaway would be alright where he was, although he might have a crick in his neck in the morning.

He stood up and looked down on his sergeant – former sergeant now, almost. They would have to talk before James disappeared on his travels, sort themselves out. Even with their work relationship dissolved, Lewis didn’t want to disappear from Hathaway’s life. And he didn’t want James to disappear from his. He realized that it would be up to him to come up with a plan of how to maintain contact, now that their working relationship was over. James’ natural reaction to a personal crisis was not to seek help from his friends, but to shut himself off from everyone and disappear. Well, even now it was still Robbie’s job to prevent that from happening. That’s what it meant to be a friend to James. Maybe not tomorrow, though, considering the hangover James was bound to have. Perhaps he should do something about that.

He went into the bathroom, where he found some aspirin, then into the kitchen, where he filled another glass with water, and set both down on the coffee table. When James woke up, he wouldn’t have to stumble around looking for these things.

That was it, time to go. But before he went, he bent down, lightly brushed his hand over James’ hair and murmured:

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I once attended a work do at the restaurant at the top of the Ashmolean. Can't remember what the occasion was, but the cocktail sausages were amazing.  
> James' pile of books is a random pick from my own bookshelves. I don't have "The Psychology of Music", but it's a real book, one of the Very Short Introductions series. I do have a book in the kitchen, though - can't waste valuable reading time.  
> The song line which Lewis remembers is from a song on an old cassette tape with country songs I used to have. Can't remember the song title or the artist, I'm afraid.  
> If you want to know about Plato and Aristotle and love, you should look it up yourself. For once, James does not really give a coherent summary.


End file.
